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A review by isotope_s
Never Fall for Your Fiancée by Virginia Heath
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.25
So inherently, I love the idea of this book. Personally, I felt it was trying to be two things at once. A serious romance with high stakes while also simultaneously trying to be the light hearted romantic comedy with outrageous circumstances and “throw caution to the wind”.
Too much of the book is dedicated to the deception and trying to convince Hugh’s mother they’re in love for comedy, rather than them actually spending time together and accidentally falling in love. Which is what the name of the book implies. There should have been several opportunities in the week prior to Hugh’s mother to arrive for them to have little moments (considering the book only covers about 4 weeks). But instead we’re rushed through it and the most we get is Hugh hating bland soup, and Vee throwing tantrums. Sure we get the physical attraction and admiration, but not really the meat of why these two characters couldn’t be with two other nice people. What we should have got is at least 3-4 more scenes that felt private, intimate, and romantic like the dancing scene where Hugh teaches Minerva to dance the waltz (which is hands down probably the best interaction between them period).
This book has good pacing... if it was 100 or so pages longer. There’s a lot of padding here that should have been reduced and replaced with interactions, dialogue, and moments between Hugh and Minerva. When they set up the night/morning interactions, I figured; "OK, here's where they're going to fall for each other because they're spending several extra hours alone" but nothing comes of those meetings. There's a lot of time jumping in its place. In terms of what these much needed scenes could replace... well I have several ideas:
Removing Vee: too much is centered around her without any of her interactions serving to bring Hugh and Minerva together. Diana is a slight extension to this, as well as Giles.
Clip Giles: replace all his roles and conversations with Payne.
Cut Minerva's father: there’s plenty of circumstances where she and her sisters are impoverished without needing to bring her father back into it (both her parents died, he died in a factory accident, he broke the law and is in jail now, he literally just ran off and they never heard from him again—all of these are common and believable enough). The hammer was already coming down at the end, we didn’t need him to expedite it.
Axing Sarah: she doesn’t serve any plot except to make Minerva jealous and to move along the “you’re like your father Hugh and that’s a good thing!”. Which is not enough of a reason to keep her around. Side note in relation to Sarah: Hugh is supposed to be this generous and liberal person yet can't be enough of an adult to at least be polite to Sarah? It's not like she did anything wrong just by being his father's child out of wedlock. She's there at the end but serves no purpose.
Skip the sex: The sex scene is shoehorned into the book in the last 50 pages and should be skipped altogether in favor of a passionate but <i>short</i> kiss.
And the ending. Oh boy, the ending might be the most disappointing part of the whole thing. Several times I thought, “There’s less than X pages left for them to tie up all the loose ends…”. This is one of the worst ways to write books, the ending hits you like a train—I have whiplash from how quickly things turn from, “I can never have you” to “I’d rather die than hurt you”.
Then there's Hugh.
Hugh is likable at first, when you realize he’s hashtag not like other gentry—he cares about his tenants, he doesn’t want to cheat, he has a conscious! But the most insidious part of his character is not that he uses his lineage as an excuse to avoid commitment. It’s that at his core, like he says several times throughout the book, he’s selfish. And he never learns to not be selfish. He’s selfish several times and apologies, but that’s where it stops. He never reflects and changes, all the way up to the last scene where he proposes in front of everyone right after Minerva’s father makes his grand reentrance and Vee is literally bawling on the couch. This is what I mean when I say "selfish". What exactly was Hugh’s arc? Are we to believe what the character says it is (his ~blood~), or what his actions imply (selfish)?
Random:
Not sure if it’s just me, but whenever I hear the word “nice” in a book, I think of the Into the Woods song, “You’re just nice / you’re not good you’re not bad / you’re just nice.” So much to the point where I don’t consider it a compliment and more saying “you’re just boring” so the whole thing where they consider each other nice was soured for me.
Normally, I love the miscommunication trope. It's funny and exasperating and amps up the tension and angst. But this showcases it at its absolute worst.
All in all, it’s a no from me.
Too much of the book is dedicated to the deception and trying to convince Hugh’s mother they’re in love for comedy, rather than them actually spending time together and accidentally falling in love. Which is what the name of the book implies. There should have been several opportunities in the week prior to Hugh’s mother to arrive for them to have little moments (considering the book only covers about 4 weeks). But instead we’re rushed through it and the most we get is Hugh hating bland soup, and Vee throwing tantrums. Sure we get the physical attraction and admiration, but not really the meat of why these two characters couldn’t be with two other nice people. What we should have got is at least 3-4 more scenes that felt private, intimate, and romantic like the dancing scene where Hugh teaches Minerva to dance the waltz (which is hands down probably the best interaction between them period).
This book has good pacing... if it was 100 or so pages longer. There’s a lot of padding here that should have been reduced and replaced with interactions, dialogue, and moments between Hugh and Minerva. When they set up the night/morning interactions, I figured; "OK, here's where they're going to fall for each other because they're spending several extra hours alone" but nothing comes of those meetings. There's a lot of time jumping in its place. In terms of what these much needed scenes could replace... well I have several ideas:
Removing Vee: too much is centered around her without any of her interactions serving to bring Hugh and Minerva together. Diana is a slight extension to this, as well as Giles.
Clip Giles: replace all his roles and conversations with Payne.
Cut Minerva's father: there’s plenty of circumstances where she and her sisters are impoverished without needing to bring her father back into it (both her parents died, he died in a factory accident, he broke the law and is in jail now, he literally just ran off and they never heard from him again—all of these are common and believable enough). The hammer was already coming down at the end, we didn’t need him to expedite it.
Axing Sarah: she doesn’t serve any plot except to make Minerva jealous and to move along the “you’re like your father Hugh and that’s a good thing!”. Which is not enough of a reason to keep her around. Side note in relation to Sarah: Hugh is supposed to be this generous and liberal person yet can't be enough of an adult to at least be polite to Sarah? It's not like she did anything wrong just by being his father's child out of wedlock. She's there at the end but serves no purpose.
Skip the sex: The sex scene is shoehorned into the book in the last 50 pages and should be skipped altogether in favor of a passionate but <i>short</i> kiss.
And the ending. Oh boy, the ending might be the most disappointing part of the whole thing. Several times I thought, “There’s less than X pages left for them to tie up all the loose ends…”. This is one of the worst ways to write books, the ending hits you like a train—I have whiplash from how quickly things turn from, “I can never have you” to “I’d rather die than hurt you”.
Then there's Hugh.
Hugh is likable at first, when you realize he’s hashtag not like other gentry—he cares about his tenants, he doesn’t want to cheat, he has a conscious! But the most insidious part of his character is not that he uses his lineage as an excuse to avoid commitment. It’s that at his core, like he says several times throughout the book, he’s selfish. And he never learns to not be selfish. He’s selfish several times and apologies, but that’s where it stops. He never reflects and changes, all the way up to the last scene where he proposes in front of everyone right after Minerva’s father makes his grand reentrance and Vee is literally bawling on the couch. This is what I mean when I say "selfish". What exactly was Hugh’s arc? Are we to believe what the character says it is (his ~blood~), or what his actions imply (selfish)?
Random:
Not sure if it’s just me, but whenever I hear the word “nice” in a book, I think of the Into the Woods song, “You’re just nice / you’re not good you’re not bad / you’re just nice.” So much to the point where I don’t consider it a compliment and more saying “you’re just boring” so the whole thing where they consider each other nice was soured for me.
Normally, I love the miscommunication trope. It's funny and exasperating and amps up the tension and angst. But this showcases it at its absolute worst.
All in all, it’s a no from me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abandonment and Sexual content
Minor: Death of parent